2021 OSCARS: My Predictions in the Top 8 Categories

Here is my annual prediction post for the 2021 Oscars, i.e. the 93nd Academy Awards. I really just consider the Top 8 categories on the blog but I often play the Oscar prediction game like lots of other people (on other websites) where I think about all 24 categories.  In 2019 I predicted 4 of 8 categories correctly and in 2020 I predicted 6 of 8 correctly.  This year I have seen all of the Best Picture nominees.

Best Picture:

• “The Father” 
• “Judas and the Black Messiah”
  
• "Mank"
• “Minari” 
• “Nomadland” 
• “Promising Young Woman” 
• “Sound of Metal” 
• “The Trial of the Chicago 7”
  

SHOULD WIN: Minari.
WILL WIN: Nomadland.

Director:

• Thomas Vinterberg (“Another Round”)
• David Fincher (“Mank”)
• Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”)
• Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”)
  
• Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”)

SHOULD WIN: David Fincher, Mank.

WILL WIN: Chloe Zhao, Nomadland.

Lead Actor:

• Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”)
• Chadwick Boseman (“Ma Rainey's Black Bottom”)
• Anthony Hopkins (“The Father")
• Gary Oldman (“Mank”)
• Steven Yeun  (“Minari”)

SHOULD WIN: Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal.

WILL WIN: Chadwick  Boseman, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

Lead Actress:

• Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey's Black Bottom”)
• Andra Day (“The United States v. Billie Holiday”)
• Vanessa Kirby (“Pieces of a Woman”)
• Frances McDormand  (“Nomadland”)
• Carey Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman”)
  

SHOULD WIN: Viola Davis, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

WILL WIN: Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman.

Supporting Actor:

• Sacha Baron Cohen (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”)
• Daniel Kaluuya (“Judas and the Black Messiah”)
• Leslie Odom Jr. (“One Night in Miami”)
• Paul Raci (“Sound of Metal”)
• Lakeith Stanfield  (“Judas and the Black Messiah”)

SHOULD WIN: Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah.

WILL WIN: Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah.

Supporting Actress:

• Maria Bakalova (“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”)
• Glenn Close (“Hillbilly Elegy”)
• Olivia Colman (“The Father”)
• Amanda Seyfried (“Mank”)
• Yuh-jung Youn (“Minari”)

SHOULD WIN: Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy.

WILL WIN: Yuh-jung Youn, Minari.

Original Screenplay:

• Will Berson and Shaka King (“Judas and the Black Messiah”)
• Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”)
• Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”)
• Darius Marder and Abraham Marder (“Sound of Metal”)
• Aaron Sorkin (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”)
  

SHOULD WIN: Minari.

WILL WIN: Promising Young Woman.

Adapted Screenplay:

• Sacha Baron Cohen et alia (“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”)
• Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller (“The Father”)
• Chloe Zhao (“Nomadland”)
• Kemp Powers (“One Night in Miami”)
• Ramin Bahrani (“The White Tiger”)
  

SHOULD WIN: The Father.

WILL WIN: Nomadland.

2015 OSCARS: My Predictions For The Nominations

Here are my predictions for the nominations in the Top 8 categories in the 87th Academy Awards that will be announced publicly at 5am PDT on Thursday January 15.

American Sniper
Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Boyhood
Gone Girl
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Nightcrawler

Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

Best Director

• Clint Eastwood, American Sniper
• Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman
• Richard Linklater, Boyhood
• Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Ana Duvernay, Selma

Best Actress

• Amy Adams, Big Eyes
• Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
• Julianne Moore, Still Alice
• Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl 
• Reese Witherspoon, Wild

Best Actor

• Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
• Benedict Cumberbatch,  The Imitation Game
• Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Michael Keaton, Birdman
• Mathew Oyelowo, Selma 

Best Supporting Actress

• Emma Stone, Birdman
• Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
• Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
• Meryl Streep, Into The Woods
• Tilda Swinton, Snowpiercer

Best Supporting Actor

• Ethan Hawke, Boyhood 
• Alfred Molina, Love is Strange 
• Edward Norton, Birdman
• Mark Ruffalo,  Foxcatcher
• J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

Best Original Screenplay

• Birdman 
• Boyhood
• The Grand Budapest Hotel
• The LEGO Movie
• Nightcrawler

Best Adapted Screenplay

• American Sniper
• Gone Girl
• The Imitation Game
• Inherent Vice
• The Theory of Everything

Total Nominations

1. Birdman (10)
2. Boyhood (9)
3. The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything (7)
4. Selma,  Gone Girl, Interstellar, American Sniper, The Grand Budapest Hotel (5)

FILM REVIEW: Gone Girl

Gone Girl is one of the best films of the year. To date it has grossed nearly $150 million domestically (and even more than that internationally). Critically, the film is hovering very near the 90% level on rottentomatoes.com (88% from critics and 90% from the audience). That it is from David Fincher, one of America's most distinctive directors (Fight Club, The Social Network), is another reason to see it.

Gone Girl is based on the blockbuster best-selling mystery novel published in 2012 written by Gillian Flynn with the same title. "What a dark comedy!" one of my friends exclaimed as the credits rolled and scattered applause was heard around the theater (at the Arclight Cinemas in Pasadena) when we saw the film in on its opening weekend.

Gone Girl is multiple movies rolled into one. It is a dark comedy; it is also a whodunnit, a battle of the sexes, a biting critique of the "if it bleeds, it leads" media culture, a meditation on the nature of the modern American marriage and star-centered vehicle for Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.

Affleck and Pike play Nick and Amy Dunne, a married couple whose version of the American dream has gone bust when both of them get fired from their publishing industry jobs in New York City and end up moving to Nick's hick hometown in Missouri to take care of Nick's ailing mom but end up stuck there permanently.  This upsets his wife, who grew up as the pampered only daughter of two psychiatrists who wrote a series of successful novels about Amazing Amy, the perfect child.

The movie opens on the occasion of Nick and Amy's fifth wedding anniversary, with Amy having apparently disappeared and Nick looking uncomfortable and secretive when questioned by the police about his wife's friends, her activities and their marriage.

When Amy doesn't appear after a few days, the police (and Amy's parents) get more suspicious of Nick's behavior and even the audience, who wants to give Affleck's character the benefit of the doubt starts to turn on him.

The film's effectiveness depends on the numerous twists and turns that Flynn has expertly included in the screenplay she adapted from the excellent source material of her own novel. Fincher's direction is exceptional, because even at well over two hours, the movie is thrillingly paced and very suspenseful.

The only question remaining now is whether (or how) Hollywood's award-industrial complex will be able to embrace and reward Gone Girl despite its genre roots come end-of-year awards.

Title: Gone Girl.
Director: David Fincher.
Running Time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated R for a scene of bloody violence, some strong sexual content/nudity, and language.
Release Date: October 3, 2014.
Viewing Date: October 5, 2014.

Writing: A.
Acting: A.
Visuals: B+.
Impact: B+.

Overall Grade: A- (3.66/4.0).

BOOK REVIEW: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn's novel Gone Girl is well-known (some would say notorious) as one of the best-selling and celebrated books published in 2012. It was optioned by Oscar-winner Reese Witherspoon soon after its publication and this led to the upcoming film adaptation directed by David Fincher starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike with a screenplay adapted by Flynn herself.

The main reason why Gone Girl is soon to be a "major motion picture" is the astonishingly high quality of the source material. Gone Girl is ostensibly about the disappearance of beautiful, blonde Amy Dunne on the occasion of her 5th wedding anniversary, it is really a chilling dissection of a relationship between two very different individuals in the economic context of the collapse of the American middle class. Amy Dunne is married to Nick Dunne, a journalist who lost his job at a prestigious magazine in New York City and moved the couple to his hometown of North Carthage, Missouri where he used the bulk of the remnants of Amy's trust fund to open a bar (cleverly called "The Bar") with Nick's twin sister Margo. As the only child of psychologist parents who wrote a series of successful child novels about a character named "Amazing Amy," Amy is raised to expect perfection in all things. And, of course, life is far from perfect.

The structure of the book is fiendishly clever. It is told in dueling first-person voices, starting with Nick Dunne in present tense starting with the day that Amy disappears. Soon we start to hear from Amy Dunne, telling her side of the story through diary entries which begin even before Nick and Amy are married and document the deterioration of the relationship over the last five-plus years.

The problem of course, is that, Flynn is deploying one of the trickiest devices in the author's toolbox: the unreliable narrator. Both Nick and Amy are consummate liars, they lie to each other, they put on false appearances for public consumption and, we quickly discover, they lie to the reader as well.

As any aficionado of murder mysteries will tell you, the mantra the police have when a wife disappears is "the husband did it, the husband did it, the husband did it." But Flynn is too clever to go along with that common trope as we find out more and more damaging information about Nick's behavior prior to his wife disappearance (he was having an affair with another woman, he increased the value of her life insurance policy, they were barely speaking to each other). These spoilers are nothing compared to what twists and turns the actual plot of the book puts you through. It literally took my breath away. Yes, it's that good. Let's hope it becomes a heckuva movie!

Title: Gone Girl.
Author: Gillian Flynn.
Paperback: 432 pages.
Publisher: Crown.
Date: June 5, 2012.
Read: December 31, 2013.

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

2012 OSCARS: Actual vs. Predicted Nominations

Best Picture 

The Artist

The Descendants

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

The Help

Hugo

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

Tree of Life
War Horse


MadProfessah's Predictions: 7 out of 9.

Best Director

• Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
• David Fincher, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Michael Hazanavicius, The Artist
• Terrence Malick, Tree of Life
• Alexander Payne, The Descendants
• Martin Scorsese, Hugo

MadProfessah's Predictions: 4 out of 5.


Best Actress

• Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
• Viola Davis, The Help
• Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
• Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin
• Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

MadProfessah's Predictions: 4 out of 5.


Best Actor

• Demián Bichir, A Better Life
• George Clooney, The Descendants
• Leonardo Dicaprio, J. Edgar 
• Jean Dujardins, The Artist
• Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
• Brad Pitt, Moneyball

MadProfessah's Predictions: 4 out of 5.


Best Supporting Actress

• Berenice Bejo, The Artist
• Jessica Chastain, The Help
• Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
• Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus
• Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
• Olivia Spencer, The Help

MadProfessah's Predictions: 4 out of 5.

Best Supporting Actor

• Albert Brooks, Drive
• Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
• Armie Hammer, J. Edgar
• Jonah Hill,  Moneyball
• Christopher Plummer,  Beginners
• Andy Serkis, Rise of the Planet of the Apes
• Max Von Sydow, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

MadProfessah's Predictions: 3 out of 5.

Best Original Screenplay

• Michael Hazanavicius, The Artist
• Mike Mills, Beginners
• Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, Bridesmaids
• J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
• Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
• Diablo Cody, Young Adult
• Asghar Farhadi, A Separation

MadProfessah's Predictions: 3 out of 5.


Best Adapted Screenplay

• Alexander Payne, Nat Faxton and Jim Rash, The Descendants
• Tate Taylor, The Help
• John Logan, Hugo
• Aaron Sorkin, Steve Zaillian, and Stan Chervin, Moneyball
• George Clooney, Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon, The Ides of March
• Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan,  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

MadProfessah's Predictions: 4 out of 5.


ANALYSIS

My overall total accuracy rate from the Top 8 categories is 75.0% (33 correct out of 44). This is a decrease from last year's astonishing 91% accuracy rate (41 out of 45) and lower than 2010's 82% accuracy (37 of 45). Interestingly, another thing I predicted correctly was that there would be 9 Best Picture nominations, not 10 for the first time in history (the new rule is that any film with first-place votes which is at least 5% of the total number of Oscar ballots gets a Best Picture nomination).


I underestimated the total for Hugo, which leads with 11 nominations, followed closely by The Artist at 10 nominations with War Horse tied Moneyball back at 6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (which was robbed of a Best Picture and Best Director nomination--Memo to David Fincher: "they really, really don't like you!") ended up with 5, along with putative front-runner The Descendants.

The Oscars will be handed out on Sunday February 26th at 7pm EST.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Other Half and I saw David Fincher's follow-up to his Oscar-winning The Social Network, the English-language film adaptation of the blockbuster thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The books written by Swede Stieg Larsson have sold over 65 million, with this first entry in the Millenium trilogy having individually sold over 30 million copies itself.

Fincher's movie stars Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomqvist, the intrepid, independent reporter and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander, the eponymous Girl in the title and hacker/social misfit extraordinaire.

The script Fincher used to film this movie was written by acclaimed screenwriter Steve Zaillian (who won the Oscar for Schindler's List). The story follows the plot of the book quite closely, which is an excellent decision because the book is excellent (surely 30 million people can't be wrong!)

The movie is close to three hours long but never seems slow. There is so much story to pack into the running time. There are two main threads of the tale: the first, primary one involves the central mystery: a classic locked room mystery involving the disappearance of a 16-yer old girl 40-years ago. The second one involves learning about Lisbeth's background as she negotiates a horrible situation stemming from being an adult who is also a ward of the state and has  a court-appointed guardian.

Eventually the two threads intersect and the two (Lisbeth and Mikael) work together to solve the mystery. While they are trying to solve that mystery they stumble upon  a much larger, disturbing pattern of murders of young women. It seems like they must be hunting a misogynistic serial killer and it is this feature of the book which explains why it's original Swedish title translates to "Men Who Hate Women." The two, working together, do eventually solve both the mystery of the original disappearance they intended to solve as well as the one involving the serial killer that they discovered inadvertently.

The most important development involves the evolution of Lisbeth Salander. It is following her story which makes the audience interested in the sequels, despite the well-executed (and slightly modified) conclusion to the first installment.

Title: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Director: David Fincher.
Running Time: 2 hours, 38 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated R for brutal violent content including rape and torture, strong sexuality, graphic nudity, and language.
Release Date: December 21, 2011.
Viewing Date: December 23, 2011.

Plot: A.
Acting: A.
Visuals: B+.
Impact: B-.

Overall Grade: (3.5/4.0).

OSCARS 2011: MadProfessah Predicts The Top 8 Categories

Here are my predictions for this Sunday's 83rd Academy Awards, known as the Oscars. This year I was 91% accurate in predicting the nominations in the Top 8 categories. Last year I correctly predicted 6 of 8 of the top categories and 17 of 24 overall.

Best Picture

“Black Swan”

“The Fighter”

“Inception”

“The Kids Are All Right ”

“The King’s Speech”

“127 Hours”

“The Social Network”

“Toy Story 3″

“True Grit”

“Winter’s Bone”

Should Win: The Social Network

Will Win: The King's Speech

Best Direction

Darren Aronofsky for “Black Swan”

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for “True Grit”

David Fincher for “The Social Network”

Tom Hooper for “The King’s Speech”

David O. Russell for “The Fighter”

Should Win: David Fincher

Will Win: David Fincher

Actor in a Leading Role

Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”

Jeff Bridges in “True Grit”

Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”

James Franco in “127 Hours”

Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech”

Should Win: Colin Firth 

Will Win: Colin Firth

Actress in a Leading Role

Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”

Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”

Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone”

Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”

Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine”

Should Win: Annette Bening 

Will Win: Natalie Portman

Actor in a Supporting Role

Christian Bale in “The Fighter”

John Hawkes in “Winter’s Bone”

Jeremy Renner in “The Town”

Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right”

Geoffrey Rush in “The King’s Speech”

Should Win: Christian Bale 

Will Win: Christian Bale 

Actress in a Supporting Role

Amy Adams in “The Fighter”

Helena Bonham Carter in “The King’s Speech”

Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”

Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”

Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”

Should Win: Helena Bonham Carter 

Will Win: Melissa Leo 

Adapted Screenplay

Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy for “127 Hours”

Aaron Sorkin for “The Social Network”

Michael Arndt, story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich for “Toy Story 3″

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for “True Grit”

Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini for “Winter’s Bone”

Should Win: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Will Win: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Original Screenplay

Mike Leigh for “Another Year”

Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson. Story by Keith Dorrington and Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson for “The Fighter”

Christopher Nolan for “Inception”

Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg for “The Kids Are All Right”

David Seidler for “The King’s Speech”

Should Win: Christopher Nolan, Inception

Will Win: David Seidler, The King's Speech 

OSCARS 2011: The King's Speech Set For Sweep

The Oscars race has become clearer in the last few weeks as the main guilds, the Producers Guild (PGA), Directors Guild (DGA) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG), have all awarded The King's Speech their highest award, making an Oscar night of historic proportions seem like an inevitability.

Director Tom Hooper, a first-time DGA nominee won the DGA award and is probably a frontrunner for the Best Director Academy Award despite critical clamor for The Social Network's David Fincher. The top PGA award went to The King's Speech, which is significant because, like the Oscars, 10 films were eligible for the top honor. At the SAG Awards Colin Firth continued his sweep of the pre-Oscar awards for Best Actor and the film won the Best Ensemble award.

Other frontrunners for Oscars are Natalie Portman (Black Swan) for Best Actress and Christian Bale (The Fighter) for Best Supporting Actor. Some people think Melissa Leo (The Fighter) is also a lock for Best Supporting Actress, but I have my doubts.

2011 Oscars: Nominations Predictions

On Tuesday January 25th, the nominations for the 83rd Academy Awards will be announced. Last year, The Hurt Locker beat out Avatar for Best Picture and a total of four Oscars, making history as the first woman won the Best Director Oscar.

This year the main battle for the Best Picture Oscar is expected to be The Social Network versus Black Swan. The picture at the top of my Top 10 list of movies for 2010  was Inception. 

Best Picture 

127 Hours
Black Swan

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King's Speech

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter's Bone 

Best Director

• Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
• David Fincher, The Social Network
• Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
• Christopher Nolan, Inception
• David O. Russell, The Fighter

Best Actress

• Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
• Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
• Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone
• Natalie Portman, Black Swan
• Hilary Swank, Conviction

Best Actor

• Javier Bardem, Biutiful
• Jeff Bridges, True Grit
• Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
• Colin Firth, The King's Speech
• James Franco, 127 Hours

Best Supporting Actress

• Amy Adams, The Fighter
• Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
• Melissa Leo, The Fighter
  
• Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
• Jackie Weaver, Animal Kingdom

Best Supporting Actor

• Christian Bale, The Fighter
• Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
• Jeremy Renner, The Town
• Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
• Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech

Best Original Screenplay

• Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right
• Andres Heinz, Mark Heyman and John J. McLaughlin, Black Swan
• Christopher Nolan, Inception
• Eric Johnson, Scott Silver, and Paul Tamasy, The Fighter
• Dave Seidler, The King's Speech

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Michael Arndt, Toy Story 3
• Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle, 127 Hours
• Joel & Ethan Coen, True Grit
• Debra Granik and Anne Rosselini, Winter's Bone
• Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Total Nominations

1. The Social Network, 11
2. Black Swan, 10
3. The King's Speech, 9
   
4. Inception, The Fighter 7

TIME Magazine Names Mark Zuckerberg Person of the Year

Facebook founder and the world's youngest billionaire Mark Zuckerberg has been named Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2010.

The editors explain their choice:

At 26, Zuckerberg is a year older than our first Person of the Year, Charles Lindbergh — another young man who used technology to bridge continents. He is the same age as Queen Elizabeth when she was Person of the Year, for 1952. But unlike the Queen, he did not inherit an empire; he created one. (The Queen, by the way, launched a Facebook page this year.) Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is a recognition of the power of individuals to shape our world. For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them (something that has never been done before); for creating a new system of exchanging information that has become both indispensable and sometimes a little scary; and finally, for changing how we all live our lives in ways that are innovative and even optimistic, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME's 2010 Person of the Year.

The story of the founding of Facebook is depicted in the movie The Social Network starring Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg, adapted from a fictionalization into a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher. The movie has been winning several  end-of-year critics awards and must be considered one of the frontrunners for the Best Picture Oscar.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Social Network

The Social Network is more ubiquitously known as "The Facebook movie." This is odd, because although the movie does tell the story about the creation of what would go on to become the largest social networking website in the world in Fall 2003 in the dorm room of a 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate, it is really about Mark Zuckerberg the creator and current CEO of Facebook.

The movie is directed by the brilliant David Fincher (Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Alien³) from a screenplay adapted by the equally renowned Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, A Few Good Men) from a book called The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal.

The movie stars Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, whom he plays as a fast-talking, emotionally distant computer genius. In fact, emotionally distant doesn't begin to describe Eisenberg's emotional affect as Zuckerberg in the film; he appears as clearly somewhere advanced on the Autism-Asperger's Syndrome axis.

Since the film makers are well aware that the audiences for the film will likely be on Facebook themselves they provide us with all the details of how a computer program essentially created in a single dorm became a worldwide cultural behemoth less than 7 years later.

Sorkin's screenplay cleverly intercuts between Zuckerberg being deposed in two separate lawsuits over the creation of Facebook, one from his erstwhile best friend Eduardo Saverin (a fellow Jewish student of Brazilian descent played by the attractive actor Andrew Garfield) and from Divya Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss. The Winklevoss Brothers (who are 6'5", 220 lb, blond blue-eyed champion members of Harvard's crew team, played by a single actor Armie Hammer with his face digitally projected on a body double) and Narendra had plans to make a website called HarvardConnect which would allow Harvard students to interact with each other online. They approached Zuckerberg after he became famous on campus for nearly bringing down Harvard's network connection after he developed a website in one night, while drunk, which allowed Harvard students to rate female Harvard students on "hotness." Zuckerberg agreed but never produced any actual code for the Winklevoss twins, and instead started his own website with $1,000 in seed funding from his friend Saverin which he called "thefacebook.com." This is about as much of the plot as I want to reveal; suffice it to say it is worth watching, in the theaters, for yourself.

The film is an engrossing, well-told tale of how friendships and relationships can be destroyed by an overwhelming desire to be successful in business, and although Zuckerberg doesn't come out smelling like a rose for his interactions with both the Winklevoss twins and with Saverin, the film clearly demonstrates that Zuckerberg is the reason why Facebook is what it is today and in the word of Eisenberg's character scoffs at the notion that either of the groups suing him could have created anything similar.

It should be noted that Fincher, Sorkin and Zuckerberg have all declared The Social Network to be a work of fiction, but in some sense that makes the film even more entertaining.

Hopefully the film, as well as the work of Eisenberg, Fincher, and Sorkin will not be forgotten at end-of-year awards time. I fully expect this film to be high in my annual Top 10 list.

Running Time: 2 hours, 1 minute.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug and alcohol use and language.
Release Date: October 1, 2010.
Seen: Sunday, October 24, 2010.

Writing: A+.

Acting: A+.

Visuals: A-.

Impact: A-.

Overall Grade: A (4.0/4.0). 

MOVIE REVIEW: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is one of the leading contenders for the Best Picture of the year but has been receiving wild ecstatic raves and vicious pans from the filmerati.

The Oscar nominations come out on Thursday January 24th and most Oscarologists expect "Ben Button" to be in the elite group of Best Picture nominees, and may have the most nominations overall.

As the above pictures indicate, the film stars Oscar winner (The Aviator) Cate Blanchett and (2-time) World's Sexiest Man Brad Pitt and was written by Oscar-winner Eric Roth (Forrest Gump). Oscar winner Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton) also has a pivotal role. However, the real star of the film is the stunning visual effects that depict the reverse-aging of Brad Pitt's character Benjamin Button as well as the forward-aging of Cate Blanchett's Daisy.

This is clearly film-making at a very high level, with the art direction, cinematography and score particularly notable. The producers of this film often work with Steven Spielberg and clearly they intended The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to have the magic of some of his classic films and/or Forrest Gump. Sadly, "Ben Button" does not reach those heights; it is a very good, but not great film.

The central conceit of the film, that someone would be born very old and physically age in reverse actually is quite effective. This plot device actually provokes some serious ruminations on the nature of life by the viewer which is often the hallmark of great art. Interestingly, despite having a structural lack of suspense (we know that Benjamin Button is going to have to "grow young and die") Eric Roth's script does an excellent job of still providing twists and turns that surprise and delight.

Both Blanchett and Pitt give spellbinding performances. Pitt, especially astounds in his physical ability to embody younger and younger versions of himself. However, I was also struck by Blanchett's even more difficult (albeit more traditional) performance that contains more physically humbling scenes. Taraji P. Henson plays Brad Pitt's adoptive mother as one of several "magic negroes" that mar the film's emotional impact. The shooting of the film in and around New Orleans, Louisiana does provide an interesting emotional frisson as well as the inclusion of the somewhat controversial Hurricane Katrina sub-plot featuring Julia Ormond.

Overall, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is one of the best films of the year; with outstanding performances by both lead actors and an intriguing plot devices that provides an opportunity for self-reflection.

Running Time: 2 hours, 46 minutes, MPAA Rating: PG-13.

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A-.

ACTING: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
PLOT: B+.
IMPACT: B+.